


Potentially Awkward

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Aliens (1986)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 09:22:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6369118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are some things a mother can never tell her daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Potentially Awkward

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally published on fanfiction.net in 2012 when I was eighteen. I'm now crossposting it here with the rest of my work. It can be seen as a companion to my other fic "Leave the Nest."

She is barely a week into eighteen when she sits her mother down and asks her about how she fell in love with her father.

Or, more specifically, she is a week into eighteen when she gets her mother drunk and asks her just how, exactly, one can fall in love while trying not to get horribly murdered by heartless xenomorphs. She also conveniently chooses a night when she knows her father will not be home.

She has not yet won the Shaw Scholarship, or faced the aliens a second time, or confessed that she's in love with her best friend of six years who is, awkwardly, serving under her father's command. Because of this she doesn't understand, and by the end of the conversation she probably still won't, but it's her parents, the family that she chose and that chose her and she loves them both to death and she wants to  _know_. It's their story, and she wants to know how it was written.

"You got me drunk on purpose," Ripley noted without accusation. She really should have expected something like this. Newt has a tendency to exploit anything--even her mother's weakness for really good red wine--when she's in pursuit of something.

"I am appalled," Newt said as she took a sip of her tonic water, "That it took you this long to figure it out. You can normally read my mind."

"Well, this is a very good vintage," Ripley said defensively.

"Jonathan suggested it," Newt said.

"You went wine shopping with Jonathan?" Ripley nearly spat out her mouthful.

"Not important," Newt said quickly. "You are important. And Dad. What was your first impression of him?"

"Um…" Ripley thought for a moment. "Well, to be honest, I was a little busy getting used to the entire atmosphere. He was just another Marine."

* * *

_They were put in pods next to each other. She woke up and turned to her right side, away from him, towards a tall, ugly pale stringbean named Drake._

" _Yo Hicks," the Marine said, his voice low and thick. "You look how I feel."_

_Ripley turned and found that the Marine on her left, Hicks, was looking not at his comrade but at her. She blinked. He didn't. She thought he might have been staring at her body but he wasn't. He looked right at her eyes, like he was curious as to what he might find in there._

_If Hicks looked how Drake felt, she decided, then Drake must have felt pretty good._

* * *

"When did you two officially meet?"

"You mean, how were we introduced?"

"Sure."

Ripley took a sip of her wine. "It was the debriefing. I'd put together a package about the aliens by Gorman's request. He was a lot less talkative than the others. He didn't boast or crack jokes. But he really listened to what I was saying. It felt like he was the only one besides Apone or Gorman who really cared at that point."

"Which one was Apone?" Newt asked.

"You didn't know him." Ripley sighed. "He was one of the ones killed when they went down to the sublevel to find the colonists, right after we got you. He was the African American."

"I think I saw him. He was one of the ones in charge, right?" Newt went over to the oven and pulled out some cookies.

Ripley smiled. "Did you make those yourself?"

Newt nodded proudly. "Yup. I'm the next Martha Stewart."

Ripley chuckled.

* * *

_Their first unofficial meeting was in the loading docks. She felt like a fifth wheel, just stumbling around watching everyone hard at work while she did nothing. She decided to stop feeling sorry for herself and strode up to where Hicks and Apone were standing._

_They'd seemed rather surprised that she wanted to help, but not in a bad way. It was like they were pleased that she wanted to be an active member of the expedition, instead of sitting on her ass like Burke and Gorman._

_The look on Hicks' face when she used the power loader was priceless. It was like he wanted to applaud or something. Apone laughed, pleased and a bit bowled over, but Hicks had this glint in his smile that she liked. From then on, they were equals._

_It also helped that he looked pretty handsome when he smiled._

* * *

"What was the first thing about him that you liked?" Newt asked.

Ripley cast her mind back. "Probably the way he looked at me. Like I was actually valuable. I was just added baggage, if you asked any of the others."

"Burke sure was added baggage," Newt muttered into her drink.

Ripley leveled her gaze at her daughter. "You don't know who someone is until they're pushed to the brink, Newt. Everyone thought he was an okay guy. Even me, at first."

"He was an asshole," Newt grumbled.

"Language," Ripley admonished. "Besides, he's not worth cursing."

"He's worth a grenade," Newt pointed out.

Ripley remembered finding the desperate man, cocooned like the others, while she searched for Newt. He'd begged her to help him, moaning about how he could feel it, moving inside of him. Nobody deserved that.

She'd given him one of her grenades and pulled the pin.

"Anyone is worth that. Some things are too horrible for anyone," Ripley chastised her daughter gently.

Newt remembered the sheer terror, and the realization of betrayal. She'd accepted the danger and darkness the aliens had brought with them, but she had never seen humans turn on one another like that. Monsters she could handle. But monsters that wore human faces? They were a new kind of scary.

She concluded that her mother was a better person than she was.

* * *

_It was difficult to pinpoint what, exactly, the first thing she liked was. There was the respect, of course. He looked at her like she had something valuable to say, or like maybe she was something valuable herself. The others all said it was a bug hunt and maybe he felt the same, but he never put her--or his superiors--down for it. And even though Hudson had joked that Hicks was a 'walking sex organ,' she never heard him make a sexual joke or even really curse around her. She was sure that he did around the other guys but around her, he didn't. It was nice._

_She'd been treated as a victim, as mentally unstable, as baggage, as prey, but it had been a long time since she'd been treated as a woman. Not in a sexual or degrading way, but in a simple, courteous manner. That person-to-person respect drew her to him more than he ever knew._

_He took it all seriously. He took her, seriously. Even if she was wrong, she was earnest, and she believed what she was saying, and so he took what she said and he listened and did the best that he could. He was never cocky, never casual, never mouthy._

_That was what attracted her._

_Crazy as it sounded, Hicks was kind of a gentleman._

_Then there was the smile. Crazy, right? Well, she had been diagnosed as crazy so maybe that shouldn't have been too much of a surprise. When he agreed with her to nuke the place from the air, and Burke threw him a bitch face and pitched a fit, Hicks ignored him in favor of looking at her, that smile teasing the corners of his mouth. Whenever he smiled at her, she couldn't help but smile back. It was so warm, so reassuring. And again that simple, human contact, his reaching out to her like that, was so unexpected and welcome. It warmed her, made her feel less like a piece of forgotten trash in this cold, twisted, malfunctioning shell of a colony. It made her feel human again._

_He made her feel, period._

* * *

"Did you like how protective he was?"

"What?" Ripley stared at her daughter incredulously.

"Oh, you know." Newt nodded, her short blonde hair bobbing along with her head. She'd cut it after getting back to Earth, shearing her long pale hair with scissors in the bathroom, kneeling on the stool over the sink. Ripley had come in, taken one look, and burst into laughter.

It was the first time that she'd laughed since one of her dear friends and coworkers had an alien burst out of his chest on the dinner table.

Of course Ripley knew, but she didn't think that Newt had noticed.

"He was always touching you, on the shoulder. And when the ship crashed, and we dove behind the rocks, he threw himself on top of you. Me, too, but that's just 'cause I just happened to be there. And when they got the Facehugger off of you, he still crouched by you. He was always protecting you." Newt grinned. "It was cute."

"You were not supposed to notice that," Ripley admonished.

"Just like I wasn't supposed to play Monster Maze." Newt giggled. "I did it anyway."

"You are such a minx. I raised a devious, deceitful, conniving little minx," Ripley lamented. "Where did I go wrong?"

* * *

_Really, that physical contact shouldn't have been so distracting. They were in a fight for their lives, and she was the only one who understood the full magnitude of how completely fucked they were. Except for Hudson, perhaps, but the guy only had half a brain anyway and none of Hicks' quiet confidence or Vasquez's inner steel._

_She did remember him covering them when the ship crashed. She felt her fragile hope fading away with the smoke as it spiraled into the darkening sky. And suddenly she couldn't see the smoke anymore, because Hicks was in the way, blocking everything from view, his arms planted on either side of her as she curled up in a desperate ball to protect Newt. His face was taut but calm, and he kept his eyes open and on her, always on her, making sure that she was safe._

_He was calming, as well. When she was driving, grinding metal, panicked, desperately running the APC into the ground in her attempt to get them the fuck out of there, she'd nearly lost it. But a soothing voice was in her ear, calming her down._

" _It's okay… we're clear. We're clear. Ease up. Sounds like a blown transaxle. You're just grinding metal. Ease up. There you go."_

_Her impossibly tense muscles began to unclench, bit by painful bit, and she eased up._

_And again, with the Facehugger--everything was blurry thanks to her eyes watering from the spray coming from the ceiling and her inability to breathe, but she remembered the absence of the hideous creature being replaced by the warm touch of his hand on her shoulder. He crouched there, yelling orders, and the moment she managed to croak out that it was Burke, she felt the hand on her shoulder tighten. It was reflexive, but it stayed there while he brought his other arm around and helped pull her to her feet. He managed to get a jacket around her, and a towel around her hair (he must've threatened Vasquez or something) and calmed her down, all without taking his arm from around her shoulders. At some point his thumb started rubbing soothing circles absentmindedly._

_When he finally stepped away from her, she'd missed the contact with a painful, aching stab that startled her. Hicks had practically thrown Burke into the chair, his voice calm but his pacing revealing his agitation. He had, quite calmly and straightforwardly, asked Burke the following question:_

" _So, do you want to lose your lying tongue for your slick talk or your dick for making a dick move?"_

_She'd been more than a little surprised, but Hicks had stayed as calm as ever as he explained that if Burke ever did anything to harm Ripley or the girl again, Hicks would personally see to it that the guy was fed to the aliens. He'd positioned himself in between Burke and Ripley as he'd said it, one of his hands reaching back, splayed, as if he were ready to push her back out of harm's way at any minute. She'd initiated the contact that time, touching his shoulder and reminding him that at this point, anger wasn't going to get them anywhere. Not with a man like Burke._

_It had felt so natural to touch him, to reassure and calm him the way he had with her._

_She remembered him planting himself in front of her, always in front of her, ready to stop any attack. When she was nearly catatonic in her grief over Newt, he got her out of the way and into the elevator. He'd paid the price for it, acid searing his skin no matter how quickly, how desperately she tried to get the armor off. Her panic had doubled, realizing that she might lose both people she'd come to care about. She'd helped Bishop bandage him up, smoothing his hair out of his face and letting him squeeze her hand while Bishop made the (painful) steps to heal him. When the android had said that he would live… that he'd be fine, he just needed rest… she'd nearly hugged him, even though she still didn't fully trust Bishop at the time._

_So yes; the contact she came to rely on, to seek out, to respond to, to reciprocate? That physical contact she remembered very, very well._

* * *

"Did you flirt?"

Ripley snorted. "Newt, we were discussing survival tactics."

"You must have found time to flirt," Newt argued. "I remember when you were studying the blueprints--Dad lifted me up onto the table so that I could see--and you two were practically finishing each other's sentences. And don't tell me you got a military tracker bracelet out of thin air."

"He might have given me the bracelet. For safekeeping," Ripley said slowly.

"He gave it to you so that he could always find you," Newt said, her words drawn out and teasing. "Because he liiiiikes youuuuu."

"I should hope so, 'cause he's stuck with me now," Ripley chuckled.

"Mommy and Daddy, sittin' in a tree, k-i-s-s…"

"Okay, what the hell is in that tonic water of yours because it sure as hell isn't just H2O."

"I might… have… spiked it. A little. Just a teensy bit. Eat a cookie."

"Rebecca Jordan Hicks, you give me that soda right this second and tell me what the hell you spiked it with!"

"Vodka…"

Ripley was forced to chase her daughter around the kitchen table and into the living room, where she tickled her on the sofa until they were both a giggling, half-drunken mess of limbs.

* * *

_Flirting?_

_Kind of._

_Flirting is… instinctual. It's natural. When you're attracted to someone, you flirt with them. Sometimes entirely platonic friends flirt a little._

_Although their flirting was not platonic._

_When he gave her that tracker bracelet, it was like he was a preteen boy giving her an invitation to his birthday party. She felt a lot like a schoolgirl, damn butterflies erupting and everything. She prayed to God she hadn't been blushing. She'd never gotten around to asking him if she was._

_The significance of the gift did not pass her up. It meant that he cared about her, and if she were lost, he'd find her. He'd track her down and get her out, even if getting her out at that point meant putting a bullet in her brain. The promise to end her life--and his--if they reached the end of the line was good enough. She hadn't been looking for or expecting this further gift. But she took it, overwhelmed with gratitude, and she'd smiled at him in a way she hadn't smiled in… well, in fifty-six years, give or take a few months._

_He'd ducked his head, embarrassed, and muttered that it didn't mean they were engaged or anything. She'd just kept smiling, unable to stop now that she'd started, looking down at the little device on her wrist. When she looked back up, he was looking at her, smiling like she was smiling, his eyes watching her. Always watching her, like he needed to keep an eye on her, keep her in his sights._

_And then there was the gun. Don't even get her started on the gun. They've argued about who was worse about it. She likes to point out that he was the one pressing himself up against her back, practically wrapping his arms around her as he demonstrated the gun's options. His line of defense is always that she was the one pressing herself against him. Of course, their choice of words didn't help._

" _You're ready again."_

" _What's this?"_

" _That's the grenade launcher. You probably don't want to mess with that."_

" _Look, you started this. Now show me everything. I can handle myself."_

" _Yeah. I've noticed."_

_In all honesty, they were both guilty. Guilty of pressing a little too close, taking a little too long to position her arms for her, guilty of letting their heads and faces press together, their breath ghosting across each other's ears as they spoke. It was something they didn't want to talk about, something they couldn't afford to think about, but it was there, and they both felt it, all the same._

_It's only now, years later, safe and sound and far away from where it all happened, that they can admit that yes, they were flirting. Yes, they liked it. And yes, they will argue about who was the bigger idiot about it._

* * *

"You know, he was the only one besides you that I liked," Newt admitted. "I mean, Hudson was all right, and so was Vasquez, but nobody paid attention to me like he did."

Ripley hummed, hugging her daughter closer to her. They were curled up on the sofa now, and Newt was getting sleepy. Drinking a good full glass of alcohol when you're eighteen and a lightweight tends to do that to you.

"You know one of the things I loved about him?" She asked.

"Hmm?" Newt snuggled deeper into her mother's embrace.

"He cared about you." Ripley planted a kiss on Newt's blonde head. "And in case you don't remember, you are very important to me."

Newt gave a sleepy giggle. "Did you know that he asked me for permission to marry you?"

"What?" Ripley smiled disbelievingly.

"Yeah." Newt nodded. "He said that he loved you and that he loved me, too, and…" She yawned. "He was wondering if it was okay if I got a new Daddy. I said… he was already kind of my new Dad so this would just make it official."

Ripley chuckled.

* * *

_He was the only one who cared about Newt. It was nothing major, but little things, tiny gestures that she noted throughout their ordeal. How he lifted Newt onto the table. How he positioned himself to be ready to grab her at any moment should trouble arise. His actions mirrored hers._

_And when Newt was gone, taken, he never yelled at her. He never said that she was stupid or reckless. He wanted Newt back, too, and he knew that this was something she had to do. She knew that he would have gone himself if he could._

_When they got back to Earth, the first thing he did when they settled down was to take Newt to the shooting range. Every Saturday morning they'd head out at first light, and they wouldn't come back until early afternoon. Newt usually had her face stuffed with pancakes and would be carrying the chips that showed her accuracy at the range, proudly displaying her bulls-eyes._

_Newt had fierce nightmares nearly every night. One time, Ripley had thought she'd have time for a shower. While rinsing out her hair she'd heard Newt's distinctive cry, the one she made just as she woke up from her terror. She'd hurriedly finished up and turned off the water, coming out of the bathroom dripping wet in a towel and just in time to see Hicks sitting on the couch, with Newt curled up in his arms. He was rocking her gently and talking to her. The girl had her arms and legs clamped around him like a bear trap, her tiny, angelic face buried into his chest. He'd looked up when she'd entered, smiling._

" _There's Mommy," he assured Newt. "See? We're all okay."_

_Newt lifted her head up and turned so that she could see Ripley. The girl had barreled over so quickly that Ripley had nearly been bowled over._

" _Thank you," she'd mouthed to Hicks as she picked up her newly adopted daughter, cuddling her._

_Hicks had shrugged and smiled again, his eyes on Newt. And Ripley knew--she knew--that he loved Newt, just as she loved her._

* * *

"C'mon, off to bed," Ripley said, dragging her daughter off the sofa and leading her to her room.

"But I have more questions…" Newt yawned.

"You just had a full day, it's after two a.m., and you're drunk," Ripley stated firmly. "I am your mother, and I say that you are going to bed."

She gently helped Newt to get into her pajamas, tucking her in and kissing her forehead. "I love you, honey. Have sweet dreams."

"I love you too," Newt murmured.

She was out by the time Ripley closed the bedroom door.

* * *

_She remembers the names the most._

_She hadn't been called by her first name in years. Every one of her friends in mining had called her Ripley, even Dallas, and he'd been her best friend. All of the Marines called one another by their last names, and she'd been treated no differently._

_It was an act of intimacy greater than sex. Sex wasn't even on their minds at that point. But sharing a part of their identity, giving each other that permission to take that step of emotional intimacy… that was a huge step._

_They'd said goodbye, possibly forever, but they pretended like it wasn't that. Not a goodbye, just a see you later. Struggling to hold on to any semblance of life and survival and normalcy that they could._

_She knew that he wouldn't let Bishop leave without her. And when he smiled at her, smiled at hearing her name, she felt a warmth inside that had been absent for so long she'd forgotten what it felt like._

" _Don't be gone long, Ellen."_

* * *

Ripley cleaned up the dishes, putting the leftover cookies in the jar on the counter and wiping up the table. She checked the clock. She knew that he wasn't going to be home until the next morning, but she couldn't keep herself from checking anyway.

An orange tabby cat leaped onto the counter, meowing.

"Oh for goodness' sake," Ripley sighed. "You're supposed to be asleep!"

Jones the Third blinked lazily at her with a manner that clearly said he didn't care what he was supposed to be doing; what he wanted to do was have something to eat.

Ripley muttered curses that she didn't mean in the slightest, picking up the cat and cradling it to her chest as she got out his bowl and cat food. As she sat at the table watching him eat, she continued to remember. She couldn't help it. Newt had gotten her started and now she was tripping down memory lane.

* * *

_Adopting Newt wasn't the easiest thing to accomplish, but with Hicks' help she got the girl in the end. Being a single mother wasn't the easiest thing, either, but she'd done it before and she could do it again. This time, she promised herself, she wouldn't let her daughter down._

_Hicks was given six month's leave by the Marines to rest and recuperate. She'd immediately offered to have him live with her, since he had no family and his home was whatever base he was currently stationed at. His entire team was dead, and while he wasn't complaining or throwing a pity party, she knew how lonely he must have felt. She'd felt the exact same way._

_WeYu had decided to settle to keep them all quiet, and given her enough money to buy a larger house. He'd insisted that she take the largest bedroom. Within a couple of weeks they had a real family thing going. Neither of them said anything, a little scared of pushing it and breaking the fragile thing they were creating, but they felt it. He helped her fix up the house, painting and building shelves and doing odd jobs like clearing the drainpipe. He helped Newt with her homework, and fixed Bishop when the android started to get on the fritz._

_She knew about the nightmares. She'd stopped having them, her fear gone or at least manageable, but both he and Newt were afflicted almost every night. He never made a sound that she could hear--she'd just wake up in the middle of the night and know. She'd enter the kitchen and he'd be there, coffee mug in hand, dark smudges like ash under his eyes._

_After about a month of this she figured out what to do. Newt always slept better when Ripley was there, holding her, the warm presence reassuring the child even in sleep. So that night, she waited about an hour after he went to bed, and then slipped into his room._

_He jumped sleepily when he felt her crawl into bed beside him._

" _Ellen--what?" He'd asked, his voice laden with drowsiness still._

" _Ssh. Just go to sleep." She'd assured him, curling up into his side._

_Too tired to argue, he'd obeyed and slipped back into slumber. When she'd woken up in the morning, they'd rearranged themselves so that he had an arm around her and she had her head on his chest like a pillow. She'd refused to let herself revel in the feeling, quietly disengaging herself and retreating back into her own bed._

_It had been a ritual after that. Wait until he was asleep, and then join him in bed, leaving early in the morning before he woke. Until the day he'd seized her wrist and given her that look, that one where he just stared at her like he was the only one who saw her. He hadn't said a word, and he didn't need to._

_After that, she stayed._

_His six months had gone faster than she'd anticipated, and when he'd received his orders he'd gone. He'd gotten her a job as a pilot, calling in a few favors (and probably yanking more than a few arms) to ensure that the jobs she got didn't put in her a warzone or unstable country. She was able to be with Newt almost every day. But she'd missed him, missed him more than she was able to admit to anyone. Even when Newt and Bishop (who'd stayed with them, insisting that he was merely helping them to 'adjust') mentioned how they felt, she'd never said a word._

_The phone call was the worst in her life, and she'd received some pretty bad news over the years. MIA. Mission went south, couldn't give her the details. They had hope but it was slim, and she was listed as his emergency contact so they were letting her know. She had a feeling the guy had assumed they were married, by the way he was talking, and she didn't bother to correct him. She was too busy picking her stomach up off the floor from where it had dropped._

_She'd spent three weeks trying to figure out how to tell Newt. The girl's happy face, telling her mother she was drawing a picture for him when he came back, wrung her heart like a dishtowel. Bishop knew that something was wrong but he didn't dare ask. She had cried herself to sleep every night in a bed that felt too big, too cold, and too empty._

_It was night, and she couldn't sleep. She was staring at a blank spot on the kitchen counter, trying to decide if coffee or alcohol would go down better. Neither was appealing but she was out of sleeping pills and she needed something._

_The door had clicked open and she'd whirled, her mind going to the gun in her bedside drawer._

_Her brain didn't register it was him but her body must have known instinctually because she was suddenly across the room, in his arms, kissing him fiercely, wrapping her arms around his neck and tugging him down closer. He was there, holding her, holding her tight and safe and she felt whole for the first time in three weeks._

" _Got back six hours ago. Been in debriefing for the past five. I would've called, but…"_

_She didn't care. She didn't care at all. Of course he'd think that three in the morning was no time to call and disturb her. Of course he'd drive an hour in the dark no matter how exhausted he must have been. And of course he'd know her question before she asked it._

_She'd kissed him again, and again, and again, trying to get him closer, impossibly closer, letting herself open up and feel in a way she'd hadn't been allowing herself in a long, long time. And he'd responded, almost in amazement, like she was a constant surprise, surprising him since she'd strapped into that power loader, and she was surprising him again by actually choosing him._

_She led him to her room, deciding that the bed was bigger and it was technically the master bedroom and if this was going to become a regular thing (which it was) she wanted it done in there._

_For all of the franticness, for all of her literally launching herself at him, it was rather slow and patient. It had been a long time for her (not just the years she'd been in cyro, but a good few years before that) and she suspected it had been a while for him, but he was determined to explore. She didn't mind._

_She tried to remember what her last time had been like. Nothing memorable, that was for sure. This was different--so very different. She had never considered herself much to look at, but the way that he treated her… it was like she was something beautiful. He kissed every inch of her that he could reach, running his lips over the mounds of her breasts and down the planes of her stomach, and always, always looking at her as much as he could. He'd open his eyes and stare at her like she was everything, a shining light in a dark world, a human among monsters, standing out from the twisted, the dirty, the base._

_It was all that she could do to keep up with him, show him how much he meant to her, how truly grateful she was for his presence. She needed him in her life, and she'd fight through anything, aliens or whatever the hell else God or life or whatever threw at her, to keep him._

_His name was a breathless gasp as she came, clutching at him, twining her arms around him, holding him and letting him hold her in return. He whispered her name repeatedly, his lips pressed to her skin, and when he emptied himself he sealed his lips over hers like he wanted to drink the air from her lungs._

_They didn't say anything afterwards. He continued to hold her, burying his nose into her hair. She hadn't let anyone hold her like that in… well, she couldn't remember._

_She'd woken up before him the next morning. She'd sat up a little, watching the early morning light play across his face. He wasn't conventionally handsome by any stretch of the imagination, but he was good looking in his own way--and now that she knew his character, her judgment was decidedly colored. She realized that she wanted to wake up like this every morning: sated, refreshed, and in his arms._

_In that moment, she knew she'd say yes if he ever asked her._

* * *

It was the tiniest of wordless cries, but Ripley heard it. She had the nerves of a warrior thanks to her experiences, and she had the ears of a mother. She hurried into Newt's room.

The teen tossed to her side in her bed, her face contorted with fear and desperation. Ripley slipped into bed next to her daughter, wrapping an arm around her and spooning her. She stroked the short blonde hair, making soothing noises.

"It's okay, honey. It's okay. I'm here now. Ssh. Nothing's here, nothing's real. They're all gone now. We got rid of them. Sssh, honey. It's okay."

Slowly but surely, Newt quieted, the words piercing through the fog of dreams and managing to drive away the dark shades of memory.

Ripley wasn't sure when she joined Newt in sleep, but the next thing she felt was a warm hand on her shoulder, gently shaking her awake. She turned sleepily, smiling up into her husband's face.

"Hey," she murmured.

"I thought you might feel more comfortable in your own bed." Hicks grinned. "Although, you two look rather cute all cuddled up."

Ripley carefully detangled herself from their daughter, slipping out of bed and accepting the hand offered to help pull her to her feet. Hicks leaned over, pulling the blankets up around Newt and giving the girl a kiss on her temple.

"C'mon," he whispered. "Let's go to bed."

She allowed him to slip an arm around her waist, laying her head on his shoulder. When they reached the bedroom, tossing unnecessary clothing items aside without preamble, she crawled on top of him, straddling him. His eyes held the same glint they'd had when he'd seen her with the power loader.

"I missed you." She shrugged.

"Well, far be it from me to complain," he whispered, pulling her down to meet him.

* * *

" _Ellen?"_

_She turned, looking at him. He was uncharacteristically nervous. The guy hadn't broken a sweat while dealing with murderous extraterrestrials, yet now he looked like he was about to jump off the top of the Empire State Building._

" _Dwayne Hicks, what the hell are you sweating about?" She'd teased, looking him up and down._

_In response, he pulled out a small velvet box._

_It was in their favorite park, on a secluded part of the walk, so she didn't bother with keeping her calm and kissed him as deeply and wildly as if they were at home. She didn't care for marriage or the institution, per se, but she cared about him. She wanted to be with him for the rest of her life._

_Newt jumped down from the tree where she'd been perched, watching the entire scene, and hugged their legs, cavorting about like a little elf and grinning in a way that made her an entirely different girl from the solemn waif that the two of them had first encountered._

" _I love you," he whispered in her ear._

" _Love you too," she'd replied._

_And he'd held her, and they'd smiled as they watched her daughter--their daughter--dance and leap among the falling leaves._

* * *

"You know, it could have just been super awkward," Newt observed over her cup of coffee the next morning. She grasped at her forehead as her father closed the cupboard door. "Ugh, don't  _slam_  it."

Her parents exchanged a look, their eyes sparkling with mirth. Ripley passed her daughter two headache pills.

"And why do I get the feeling there's stuff you didn't tell me? I still want the full story," Newt argued.

Hicks gave his wife a look that said she was going to have some serious explaining to do as to why their daughter had a hangover and was spewing nonsense. Ripley just grabbed her own cup of steaming liquid caffeine and smiled down at her daughter.

"Well, yes, it could have been awkward, but it wasn't," she said simply. "And some day you'll learn, honey, that there are some things that a mother will never tell her daughter--no matter how old she gets."

Newt grimaced. "Spoilsport."

"What? You're telling me you really want every dirty detail about–"

"Okay, okay, I don't want a visual, I get it!" Newt protested, gulping down the pills. "Oh, God, why is everything so  _bright?"_

"You really want an answer?" Ripley sighed.

Newt nodded, then made a face like the act of moving her head gave her motion sickness.

Ripley turned to her husband, who had his back to her as he fiddled with the coffee machine. "Dwayne?"

"How the hell did Bishop set this thing… yeah?" He turned to face her.

Ripley pulled him in by grabbing his army jacket, yanking his mouth to hers and spearing her tongue in before he could do more than make a surprised grunt. He responded though, instinct taking over, until Newt made a gagging sound.

"Ah! Okay! I get it! Gross!" She jumped up and tore into the bathroom. The sounds of retching emanated from the room.

Ripley couldn't help herself--she laughed. Hicks looked at her like she'd just instructed him to show her what the grenade launcher on the pulse rifle did.

"You are going to have to tell me exactly what is going on," he said, bewildered.

Ripley kissed him lightly. "Someday," she promised. "When our daughter isn't puking her vodka and guts up in the toilet."

"Vodka!? Ellen–!"

While wiping her daughter's forehead as she vomited and her husband demanded to know what the hell was going on and how the fuck Newt had gotten a hold of  _vodka_  wasn't going to win Best Morning Ever any time soon, Ripley wasn't going to trade it for the world.

Even if explaining everything to Dwayne was potentially awkward.

* * *

_"Dwayne?"_

_"Hmm?"_

_"Remember when you gave me that tracker bracelet?"_

_"Yeah. I was so nervous. You'd think I was giving you a bouquet of roses."_

_"Did I blush?"_

_"I have no idea. I was too busy trying not to blush or blurt out something stupid. Hey--it's not funny! I was awkward as hell!_


End file.
